Safety gates for confining children or pets are known. In some, the gate is composed of two panels which expand to fill a door or hall way and clamp in place against the door jamb or walls by a ratchet or pawl-type mechanism consisting of two poles one of which is provided with a series of regularly spaced slots and the other of which is provided with a hinged member able to sit in the slots. The mechanism is attached to the vertical mid-point of each panel and extends horizontally from one side end of the first panel to the other side end of the second panel. The adjustment to fit the gate is by hand. The hinged member is lifted vertically while the panels are expanded to fit. Then the member is lowered into a slot. Often this adjustment takes two or three or more tries to get right, especially if one person is setting the gate in place.
In other safety gates, the gate is mounted on a hinged U-shaped frame and the frame is adjusted to fill the door or hall way by means of a plurality of screw pads on the frame. Typically there are four screw pads, one each at the top and bottom of one side of the frame and one each at the top and bottom of the other side of the frame, and to properly mount this type of gate each of the screw pads must be unscrewed in a fairly even manner.
It would be advantageous to provide a safety gate that eliminates the above-noted problems with known safety gates. Such a gate is provided by this invention.